


Peace

by SSVOmega



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Self-Harm, Trans Male Character, Trans Male Deputy, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24635290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SSVOmega/pseuds/SSVOmega
Summary: Soulmates share scars, it's a commonly known and accepted fact. The story of your life written into the skin of the other half of your soul. Jacob's heart aches for anyone who has to share his scars and the stories that they tell.
Relationships: Male Deputy | Judge/Jacob Seed
Kudos: 84





	Peace

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this whole thing in one day and haven't even read it. I'm going to try to write more tomorrow but for now I'm going to leave it as a oneshot because my writing is spotty at best and this is the first thing I've written in 5 years so I'm going to go easy on myself. I'll add more tags later probably.
> 
> I'm gonna read through and make spelling and grammar edits as time goes on so I'm sorry in advance, this is a little shit but I'm a little shit so it all shakes out.

Soulmates share scars.

It’s a commonly accepted phenomenon, though nobody knows how or why this happens. It’s also a commonly accepted fact that if people don’t talk about their scars, you shouldn’t ask about them. This held true with Abigail’s scars as much as anyone’s. Some of them, dotted across her arms in angry red spots that fade with every passing year, were there before she even knew how to talk. Burned into her soulmate’s skin and copied, like a poor facsimile, onto her own. Abigail felt no pain beyond a phantom itch, but she knew that her soulmate had known pain from the start and the Rook family watched on with sadness as more and more appeared with the passage of the years. 

***

Jacob Seed knew nothing of soulmates beyond what he’d seen on the rare glimpses of television he was allowed. He never believed it was true, never once thought that his soulmate was out there, watching as cigarette burns appeared on his skin. Waking with split lips scabbing over, matching smears of blood on their pillow. Jacob never once thought that he would know someone by their scars. All he knew was protecting his brothers. All he felt was rage and hatred, the cigarette burns escalating into beatings when his father quit smoking and took up the drink, only growing more frequent with each brother. 

He cared for them, fed them, clothed them, and stood between them and the fury of their father until he could stand no longer. When Jacob awoke in the hospital he didn’t think that the wound that split his brow would be shared by another, nor the stitches in the back of his head, or the scars from the surgery that set his arm back to how it should be. He only thought of his brothers, and where they would go now. He could only hope that it would be better.

***

Abigail was 10 when she awoke with a split in her brow and a pervasive ache throughout her whole body. She knew that her soulmate was in pain, but didn’t truly understand why they were being hurt. She couldn’t comprehend that anyone could be mean enough to cause such hurt on purpose, assuming that her soulmate was clumsy and just hurt themselves a lot. Perhaps they had fallen off their bike, and that’s why there were now scars littering her arms and face. She thought nothing of the acrid smell that sometimes met her nose, or the inexplicable fear of broken glass and amber liquid. Her parents doted on her, partly because she was their daughter and that was their duty, and partly because they could see first had evidence of the opposite spreading across their daughter’s skin with every passing day. They feared for her soulmate, but made sure to talk about them with optimism, refusing to tell her the truth behind the scars that caused a sinking feeling in their stomach.

***

Jacob thinks nothing of getting his first tattoo. It’s a ghetto setup, with ink that will probably give him an infection, but at this point he has far bigger things to worry about. His roommate in juvenile detention proposes it after their first few months together and Jacob can think of no reason to refuse. It had been a year or more since he had last seen his brothers. A year or more since he had saved them from gaslighting and further abuse at the hands of their foster family by burning down their house. He didn’t know what had become of his brothers, he only hoped that they had been placed with a better family, maybe even moved state. He had asked once, sat in the sickly yellow office of his guidance counsellor, if there was a chance of him being granted guardianship of his brothers. That conversation had ended with scarred knuckles and wounded pride that shifted over time into bitter acceptance.

The ink stings more than it should and Jacob is aware that he will likely be in the infirmary with a fever for a while after this but it feels worth it. The block script is small and snakes its way inside his left wrist. GENESIS37 - JOHN15:13. He’s never been a religious man, but he knows that Joseph is, it seems fitting that his brothers are with him in that way. It settles his anger to run his fingers across the letters and imagine them somewhere, happy, with a family that cherishes them.

***

Abigail knew she was different from around 13, coincidentally around the same time a two bible verses appeared on her wrists. Obviously she looked them up but couldn’t make any sense of them beyond religious ramblings. Coming from Hope County there was always the looming spectre of God and religion, she had a loosely religious upbringing just like every kid in the County. As she grew closer and closer to her own truth, she grew further and further from the bullshit they spouted every sunday in church. Further and further from the belief in some omnipotent being in the sky that saw everything and made no mistakes. God had certainly made a mistake with her.

By the time Abigail connects the dots there is another tattoo. A symbol high on her left shoulder. An eagle, a dagger, a parachute with wings. It’s beautiful and dread settles in her heart. Her soulmate is a soldier, old enough to enlist and get a tattoo while she’s still in school.

It doesn’t take long for her fears about her soulmates to be replaced by her own struggles. She researches carefully, reading all she can about people like her, and eventually comes to a solid conclusion. 

She has to leave Hope County. 

***

Jacob has been in Iraq for a couple of months when the first volley of scars shows up, angry open wounds that fade and are quickly replaced by fresh. Some opened more than once, picked at and aggravated on purpose. He knows what he’s seeing, he knows what the fresh wounds scattering his thighs and his right forearm mean. He knows that he didn’t put them there.

Jacob has a soulmate.

He had always assumed that he was one of the unlucky ones. Always wondered why he was covered in his own scars but nothing from another. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would never find the one he was destined to have beside him, that they didn’t exist and that his scars were solely his own.

Jacob looks at himself differently from that day on.

There’s someone else out there who’s seen every one of his wounds. Every cigarette burn from his childhood. Every split lip from his father’s beatings. Every line of the tattoos scratched into his skin. There is someone out there who knows the story of his life, intimately, more intimately than even his lost brothers. Someone who sees his pain, both that inflicted by himself in scarred knuckles and crescent shapes carved into his palms, and that inflicted by others in the split in his brow and the pins in his bones.

It makes the fresh wounds littering his body hurt in a way that they shouldn’t. Knowing that this person has seen his worst secrets written on his skin, and he knows nothing of their pain beyond that they inflict upon themself.

It takes him a couple of months. Watching the small clouds of wounds grow into patches of scabbed skin, damaged nerves. It takes him a couple of months to snap and add his own. Small jagged lines forming letters. They’re not pretty but they make his point.

Please stop.

There are no more scars after that day. He watches the fresh ones heal over. The old ones fade into nothing but a bad memory. Jacob doesn’t lie to the medic who patches up the wound on his wrist after noticing the angry letters the day after. People understand that soulmates share scars and have learned not to ask.

***

The year before Abigail leaves Hope County something happens. Searing pain awakes her in the night and something snaps in her mind, the stress compounded and becoming too much for her to bear. One more year, she would chant. One more year. And then another. And then another. And then where would she go. Who would she be.

The scars that mar the right side of her body are serious. Angry and deep. Aching so much that she can’t imagine what her soulmate is going through. It steels her resolve. No matter what she goes through, there will always be somebody out there who has gone through similar pain, who stands in sympathy.

She chooses her new name the next day.

Needless to say the decision and the confession that comes with it does not go over well in the Rook household. As wonderful and caring as they have been, they are still devoutly religious and do not believe that God could make a mistake.

Elliott Rook knows that his truth is right the second the name comes out of his mouth. It feels right in a way that nothing has. He lives out the remainder of his days in Hope County seething with desperation to leave. It’s not long before he leaves his parent’s home and moves into the apartment above the Spread Eagle with his friends. On his 18th birthday he gets on a cross country bus heading to the city, his friends the only people waving him goodbye.

He doesn’t really know what he’s going to do when he gets to the city. He has vague promises from Billy that he knows some people he can crash with until he gets a job and that’s enough for Elliott. He makes a good go of it. Gets a job as a receptionist at his local police department. It was the best paying job he could find and the least likely to discriminate against him for his identity, eventually he has enough saved to go through with the treatments he needs.

***

Jacob goes another few years without any new scars beyond superficial ones of his own. His burns heal slowly and he wonders what his soulmate must think. He thinks about them every day, sometimes intentionally, sometimes just in passing. Wonders what they’re doing, where they are, if things got better. He’s 23 and struggling with his own mental health when the new scars appear. Two thick angry ropes beneath each pectoral. It takes him a day or two to figure out what they are but it tells him more about his soulmate than any other scar has before. 

Jacob waits. Thinks about what he’s done. Wonders if his soulmate could ever accept the monster he became out in the desert. He doubts that anyone could ever accept what he did to Miller, what he did to his best friend. Even he can’t accept it. It haunts him with every breath, every mouthful, every time he closes his eyes. 

The searing heat of the desert aggravates his scars and makes them slower to heal, the burns angry and blistered for years after they happened. He wonders now if he did it on purpose somehow, some form of atonement for what he did. Jacob comes to accept that as his truth. What happened while he was manning the burn pit on base was meant to happen, destined as his payback for his monstrous ways. He focuses on the memory of the kerosene sticking to his skin, uses it to ground him when he struggles most with what he did. His therapist says that it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism but it’s the best one he can come up with for something that defies the natural order of the universe.

It’s around a year after the scars appear on his chest that he gets a tattoo beneath them, small symbols, white ink, a message. 

An arrow, halved, with the tip pointing towards the broken stem. Peace. 

Not long after a similar one appears on his wrist. A small symbol, white ink, a message.

Two arrows, crossed in exactly the same style. Friendship.

Something settles in Jacob at that, knowing that his message was understood and his support was appreciated, whoever his soulmate might be.

***

Elliott Rook spends the next 3 years of his life training harder than he ever has before. He had never been one for physical activity back in Hope County, he wasn’t allowed to play football or work in the fields with the boys back then so he just… didn’t. Now, with the rigorous training regime of the police academy he was attending, he was beginning to regret that choice. The physical aspect combined with the testing and coursework projects were stretching him to his limits and he was stressed beyond belief, but every time it got a little too much he would go for a swim and glance at that white ink along his ribcage. It comforted him and made it easier to push on with his plans.

He graduated with pretty high marks, high enough to pass and be successful in getting a job in the city. He worked there for a while but a thought began to tug at his mind one night and it wasn’t long before he was packing up his life and heading back to Hope County. He applied to the Sheriff’s office for a transfer and was accepted almost instantly, Hope County crying out for new law enforcement officers. He drove home this time, across rolling fields under bright blue skies, past all the corn anyone could want in their life and then more until he passed the blue sign that lead him into Hope County proper.

Elliott’s first stop had been Fall’s End, to check in at the Spread Eagle. He had been keeping up with the Fairgrave family while he was away in the city but he wanted to see them, and the sun was barely falling beyond the horizon so he knew they would be there.

It was strange to be back among his friends out in rural Montana, he had grown so used to the city that Hope County was far too quiet for him to sleep easily at night. He had been a rookie with the department for a few months before the Sheriff told him his true reasoning behind hiring the Deputy. Elliott wasn’t pleased to hear about the situation in his home but then again he wasn’t exactly surprised either, Hope County was easy prey for cults and the like, being so far removed from any cities. The Sheriff’s office did their best but they were only a small outfit and the majority of lawkeeping in the county was done on an honour system, if you don’t get caught you don’t get prosecuted and as long as you’re not hurting anyone you’re usually left well enough alone. Elliott knew that well from Sharky and his damn pyromania. More than once that man had set fields alight but nobody was hurt so no action was taken, that was just how Hope County was.

If Elliott was less than happy with the truth then his feelings about involving the US Marshals were even more sour. There was just something about Burke that wasn’t right but Elliott didn’t have the authority to question it and it rubbed him up the wrong way. Obviously that all became completely irrelevant when he walked into that church and saw the Seed family for the first time.

***

The cuffs hung loose in the Deputy’s fingers as he laid eyes on Jacob seed for the first time. He couldn’t have been over 30, with a shock of red hair and a beard to match, dressed in jeans and an old military shirt with dogtags around his neck. None of that was what drew the Deputy’s attention. No, it was the rough scarring across the right side of Jacob’s face that drew his attention, all the way down his arm to the wrist where a crosshatch of smaller scars was just barely visible. 

Elliott’s scars.

It was like the world warped around him, tilting on it’s axis as his legs gave out. It was like waiting for a pin to drop, time slowed as he descended to the ground. The second the scuffed knees of his jeans met the wood floor all hell broke loose, Peggies swarming the other officers and dragging them outside leaving just him. Elliott Rook, in the same room as his soulmate, who just so happened to be a crazed cult herald.

Fuck.

Elliott could hear the Sheriff calling his name, Burke shouting about the law and his warrant as if it would make a difference to these people, Hudson doing her best to keep the peace until there’s a loud bang that he distantly registers as a gunshot and then all sounds are drowned out in a swarm of chaos. He can barely breath. His chin tight to his chest as he tries to manage his panic. He hasn’t had an attack since before he left Hope County and he can barely remember how to deal with them. His mind is spiralling and his breaths are coming shorter, throat tight, lungs burning as dark spots burst before his vision.

Boots between his spread knees. A finger beneath his chin. A large frame kneeling before him. A warm hand against his chest.

“Breathe with me, come on.” A gruff voice, deep breath, searing heat from the hand against his chest seeping through his rough green uniform. Counting barely breaks through the pounding in his head that he distantly realises is his own heartbeat. He latches onto the sound, forcing his breathing to slow until he can almost see straight. 

Which is when he bursts into hiccuping sobs.

***

Jacob almost vomits when he sees the Deputy attempting to cuff his brother. He’s gorgeous and he can’t possibly attempt to consolidate the fact that something so wonderful could possibly be bonded to him. But there are the ugly scars that Jacob had burdened him with and there’s a hint of white ink as he lifts the cuffs to Joseph's wrists only to stop, eyes locked on Jacob.

The Deputy is on the floor before Jacob knows what’s happening, a wave of Peggies washing everyone but him and the Seed’s from the building. Joseph’s arms bracketed the Deputy until the wave had passed and then his younger brother stepped back, gesturing to the Deputy as if revealing a gift.

Jacob stepped forward, thoughts churning. He should send the Deputy away, use some of his savings, get him out of the state, out of the country. As far away from the Seed family as possible. A selfish force snarls inside him at the thought of losing the Deputy now that he has found him and the second he crouches before his soulmate he knows all ideas of getting him out of Hope County are pointless. He could never give up the creature fallen before him.

“Breathe with me, come on.” He doesn’t know where the care comes from, doesn’t know how he can carry such softness in his voice. He watches as the heaving chest lessens, the fingers gripping at his jeans a little less frantic. It all seems to be going well until the Deputy erupts into tears out of nowhere.

Jacob is at a loss. He has no idea how to comfort someone. He has even less idea how to comfort someone crying for seemingly no reason. All choice is taken from him as the Deputy crawls into his lap, causing him to fall on his ass unceremoniously in the middle of the church.

He can hear Joseph talking quietly in the background but all of his thoughts, all of his senses are focused on the man in his lap. Gently, he turns over his wrists to see the words carved there. His words. The Deputy must have been so young then, he barely looks out of his teens now!

All of his misgivings about having a soulmate come rushing back but are batted away as the sobs begin to slow, the Deputy pushing his face into Jacob’s neck, almost buried in his beard. He spoke so quiet that Jacob barely heard him over the racket outside.

“I didn’t think I would ever find you.” 

***

Elliott hadn’t meant to talk to him. Hadn’t meant to get close to him. Hadn’t meant to cry into his shirt and clutch him like he was the only thing keeping him alive. Elliott hadn’t meant to enter the church a lawman and potentially never leave. There were a lot of things that Elliott had never meant to do.

It was like the second he opened his mouth he just couldn’t stop himself.

“I didn’t think I would ever find you.” He draws in a hiccuped breath, “I didn’t even know if you were still alive. I don’t know what happens if- if one of us- isn’t alive. I thought I’d be alone forever- I never thought-” 

His words tripped over themselves and he took a deep breath, shifting away from the strong chest he was pressed into and wiping his tear stained face before turning to face his soulmate.

“I’m Elliott.” He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the crisp blue eyes, like glacial melt water, “I guess I don’t really need to ask your name, do I Jacob?”

A strange quiet descends on the church as they sit together, Elliott cradled in Jacob’s arms. He had almost forgotten about the rest of the Seed family, most of them keeping out of view until Joseph descended on them.

“Did I not tell you that another would be joining our family, Jacob? You scoffed at me, and yet the Deputy has strolled right into your arms-”

Elliott cut him off before he could evangelise much more, sick of the man’s voice already.

“Shut the fuck up and let me have this, Seed.” Joseph’s mouth snapped shut and both Jacob and John snickered, though likely for different reasons. Elliott ignored the younger Seed and tucked himself back into Jacob’s chest, “Things are going to get a lot more complicated the second we leave this church so just… just let me have this, okay.”

***

It could have been hours and he wouldn’t have known. He had been sat on the floor of the church with the Deputy - Elliott - in his arms for so long that his legs were numb and his back was hurting but he was loathe to move. Even more so when he realised that Elliott had fallen asleep. 

Letting out a heaving sigh he forced himself to his feet, picking Elliott up as gently as he could and holding him close. It was time to leave the church and he didn’t know what he would see outside but it was likely for the best that Elliott was sleeping. Making sure to hold the Deputy close to him, Jacob followed Joseph from the church, completely ignoring the glances from his youngest siblings. He wanted to take Elliott back to his home, back up to the hospital in the mountains, but Joseph likely wouldn’t let him take his soulmate until he had been conditioned to the will of Joseph. The thought gave Jacob chills. He wanted his soulmate to be loyal to him, not to his charismatic younger brothers.

Joseph put all of those thoughts to bed when he stopped Jacob in the courtyard, glancing over to the eldest’s truck.

“No doubt you’ll want to take him home and get him settled.” Jacob was reluctant, waiting for the penny to drop and Joseph laughed, seemingly aware of exactly that. “I have utmost faith in your methods, brother. We’ll talk about this another day, for now you should tend to your own flock.”

There was something in Joseph’s expression that Jacob still didn’t quite trust but he wasn’t going to turn down this freedom. He wouldn’t say that it spoke well of the future because Joseph could be a fickle man, reneging on his decisions from day to day. Dishonour wasn’t one of the seven so it didn’t particularly matter. 

***

Cool wind whistled through his short hair as he came to consciousness, groggy and confused but feeling strangely calm. Elliott opened his eyes slowly, taking in the cab of the truck he was curled up in, strapped safely into the passenger side. Glancing out of the windshield it took him a moment to place the fact that they were in the mountains. Had Jacob really managed to get him strapped into a truck and halfway across the County before he’d woken up?

“Where are we going?”

Jacob glanced over at him, clearing his throat, “I live in the mountains. You should be safe up there with me.”

Elliott paused, took a deep breath and asked himself if he really wanted to know the answer to his next question before huffing when he realised that he did, “Safe from what?”

Jacob scoffed, not seeming to understand that he wanted a genuine answer until he asked again. The eldest Seed responded with something akin to surprise colouring his tone, as if Elliott should know what he needed to be safe from, “My brothers, the fucking cult, the Marshals when they come looking for their pals. Everything. You’ll be safe from everything.”

“Well fuck.” Elliott’s thoughts raced before his eyes, too many and too fast to count until one fell out of his mouth without him meaning for it to, “I guess I’ve got no choice but to join the family huh?”

Jacob grunts out a question and it takes Elliott a moment to understand exactly why he knew what he’d said to be true, it takes another to put it into words that Jacob will understand rather than a garbled mess of word vomit. 

“You think anyone’s going to believe me when I say I didn’t know what we were walking into there? Not a single person is going to understand why I didn’t arrest your brother. And not a single one of them is going to be sympathetic to the fact that my soulmate is a fucking cult herald lead by a complete psycho who thinks the world is going to fucking end. This is not something I can get away with, Jacob.” He pauses his rushed explanation to take a breath, watching for Jacob’s reaction, continuing when he doesn’t get one, “They’ll make an example of me, Jacob. It’s not a typical case, it’ll turn into a witch hunt. I’m fucked if I ever leave Hope County.”

When Jacob says nothing Elliott figures it’s probably safe to add a parting shot to his negative monologue, “They like making examples of people like me.”

“What do you mean people like you?” Jacob’s voice is rough, as if he’s holding something back.

A rough laugh bubbles from Elliott’s lips before he can stop it, an answer following quickly, “You know what I mean Jacob. The majority of the people in this County think I’m some kind of devil that shouldn’t exist. It’s no fucking wonder a crazy religious cult took over, they were practically begging for it. Guarantee they’d lynch me if they could get away with it.”

Jacob is quiet for a moment before he growls out a simple reply that puts an end to the conversation, “I’d like to see them fucking try.” His tone is so final and so protective that it steals Elliott’s breath away and they finish the ride in silence.


End file.
